The use of liquefied natural gas (“LNG”) and other petroleum fluids as the source of fuel for industrial use and home heating continues to increase due to their availability and convenience. These petroleum fluids often take the form of cryogenic fluids, which are made by pressurizing and cooling hydrocarbon gases until they turn into liquids at very low temperatures. As such, the cryogenic fluids have to be transported from their original sources, which are often located in remote areas, to processing facilities where they are processed by various techniques in order to convert them into the type of commercial gas product that may be stored and/or sent to be distributed in the gas marketplace. Such processing involves the regasification, offloading, vaporization and distribution of the fluids, and is sometimes conducted at a maritime terminal. Crude oil, processed oil, petrochemicals such as isobutene, ethylene, propylene and the like, liquid hydrocarbons such as such as gasoline, lubricating oils and the like, compressed natural gas (“CNG”), natural gas liquids (“NGL”), i.e., combined butane, propane, hexane and the like, liquefied petroleum gas (“LPG”), such as butane, propane, hexane and the like, and so-called “gas-to-liquid” products (“GTL”), such as certain diesel oils, lubricating oils, paraffins and the like, as well as numerous other fluid products such as mineral and vegetable oils, NaOH, NaCl clarifiers, ethylenebenzene, benzene, raffinate and other liquid and gaseous chemicals, are also processed by various techniques in order to convert them into commercial products suitable for storage and/or distribution in the marketplace. When cryogenic fluids such as LNG are processed at maritime and land-base terminals, the processing always entails large capital investments, which are required by the need to provide expensive cryogenic storage tanks and vaporization equipment. Furthermore, demurrage and other charges associated with loading and offloading operations to and from the terminals burden the processing with additional costs. The offloading, handling and distribution of crude oil, processed oil, compressed natural gas, natural gas liquids, liquefied petroleum gas, petrochemicals and so-called gas-to-liquid products, as well as many other fluids, are also burdened with large capital investments and demurrage and other charges associated with the loading and offloading operations.
Technologies exist for generating LNG from natural gas and for processing and converting the LNG back to its gaseous form and distributing it to the market, as well as for handling and distributing crude oil and other petroleum products. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,033,735, 4,317,474, 5,129,759, 5,511,905, 5,657,643, 6,003,603, 6,298,671, 6,434,948 and 6,517,286. While the technologies described in these patents serve to address a number of individual product processing situations, none of them addresses the reception, processing, handling and distribution of a combination of these products from a central location under conditions that minimize the capital investments and operating costs required to carry out such reception, processing, handling and distribution operations.
A need exists to provide a safe and efficient method and system for receiving, processing, handling and distributing to the marketplace LNG and other fluid products at a centralized location under conditions that minimize the capital investments and operating costs required to carry out such operations. The present invention is directed toward providing such method and system.